New Humanist Magazine Cover

I was asked to create a cover for British publication 'New Humanist' for their annual edition titled "Empires" so we looked at various styles of lettering from bygone eras ideally in the height of the British empire. Stamps, currency, medals, maps from that era were main inspirations here.

Below is an unedited version of the cover, the cover was initially approved at state shown above but wasn't communicated to me so I kept working at it until I arrived in the state below, publishers still went with the above version though uncotunately